Business for a Fair Minimum Wage is a national network of business owners and executives who believe a fair minimum wage makes good business sense

Athol Daily News: Mass. minimum wage to rise to $12 on Jan 1st

Athol Daily News, Dec 28, 2018

BOSTON – On January 1, 2019, 662,000 low-wage workers in Massachusetts will get a raise when the state’s minimum wage rises from $11 to $12 an hour, the first of five annual increases laid out in legislation passed this spring that will bring the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2023. Also on January 1, the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers will rise from $3.75 to $4.35 an hour. ...

According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, this year’s minimum wage increase will raise the wages of 662,000 Massachusetts workers, or 20 percent of the workforce statewide, for a total wage increase of $817.5 million in 2019. Roughly 88 percent of workers who are affected by this year’s raise are at least 20 years old, 58 percent are women, and 52 percent work full-time. ...The increase will also raise the wages of roughly 15 percent of all working parents in Massachusetts, and more than 255,000 kids in the Commonwealth live in households with a working parent who would benefit from the increase. ...

For employers, higher wages mean more efficient workers and less employee turnover, making it easier to recruit and retain workers and helping their bottom line. In most lower-income communities, between a third and half of all workers will get a raise as the minimum wage rises. That means more money they can spend at local businesses. More than 300 Massachusetts business owners and executives, and 90 Massachusetts economists, signed statements supporting a minimum wage increase to $15. ...